Treasure Hunt!

Today Dave and I had a great little adventure out and about. Last week when we moved into our apartment we deemed Saturday, Cleaning Day, just so we can make sure we are up on top of keeping this place as spic and span as possible. So after our morning cleaning and eating lunch we headed out the door.

First stop was to the Centenary Antique Centre, to see what they have. Oh MY GOODNESS...this place is AMAZING! It is a HUGE building filled with different antique and vintage shop/areas! By far it is the biggest store with the best selection that I have ever been to. If you are into antiquing or thrift shopping than you would believe this place is heaven. It has clothes, purses, chairs, books, things with the Queens face on it, posters,....almost anything you could think of.

Seeing all the purses row by row in stall after stall I was in heaven. I would just pick them up one by one and show them a little love and gently put it back. Since I couldn't buy (or afford) them ALL I had to just pick one small little coin purse. It is SOOOO cute, a blue print with flowers all over it. I know that is will be used for many many years. 

Don't even get me started on all the A-MAZING clothes they had! Cute dresses, skirts, tops, and variety of coats from eras gone by. When shopping for thrift or vintage clothes I always wish I could buy them, but there is rarely anything in my size. I think this could be great inspiration to get fit! Maybe a little reward for me will to purchase a clothing item from here! OOOHHHH..I can't wait to go back and look at all the inspirations!

Man, I am a SUCKER for old books. I love how they are worn down from being loved and read over and over and over again. I feel like the carry so much history and have a story, other than the ones on their pages to tell. I found this great kids book called the Magic Pudding that has Koalas, Wombats and Pudding that was printed in Australia!

Here is a picture of what we purchased today. We hopefully will be going back after our first pay check (we should on getting jobs) to purchase some more great pre-loved items for our future home!

Australian Travel Bag, Floral Coin Purse, Magic Pudding Book, Queen Elizabeth Tin

Our home away from home

Dave and I have officially had a place here in Newcastle, Australia for 5 days! It is located in an area called The Hills. The name is very fitting because any which way you turn on the streets you are bound to end up going up hill. This is exactly what Dave and I found out when we went  tried to go for a run earlier today. It turned into a walk up the hill, catch breathe at top of the hill, jog down for a bit, then walk down because it is to steep of a slope and then start all over again! We did however find a new park that is only 3-4 blocks away that we will probably be visiting more because it has a great view of the city. 

Here is a little tour of our apartment, so you can see the Shoave palace in Newcastle:

The place has turned out to be okay...nothing great. We have shelter and a place to sleep at night, that is the most important thing. Plus here we are FAR more cleaner than we were in the states, so that is a plus. It has to do with a fear of roaches, which I will touch on a little bit later!  If you don't feel like watching the video tour and hearing my voice sound like I'm 12..here are some pictures!

When you enter the door you come right into our living room

Kitchen off to the left. All appliances and dishes came with the unit

Living Room and Door. We bought the sheet and pillows to cover up the icky couch beneath.
We also placed bags from home up for easy grabbing, decoration, and to feel like we are home. 

Our bedroom. It had two single beds that we pushed together, pillowcases from home (they say Key to my heart). The room has some storage for our clothes, which is nice. We had our second encounter with a roach on the bed, it was the biggest one I have ever seen!

Our bathroom..where the shower drain barely works, when you turn on the hot water the cold water handle runs, and where I killed my first cockroach (it was a german cockroach..I've become an expert on roaches)

So this is our place here on Mosbri Crescent in Newcastle. We find it to be okay, but honestly we don't really spend to much time in the apartment. Our days usually consist of us waking up, getting ready, heading out for the day, and then coming home for the night, watch tv and check internet, and then head to bed. As stated above we have had a few encounters with the insects of Australia. I HATE bugs...they are sooo gross, so it has been hard for me to handle these roaches. I have learned that due to the warm weather here in Australia there really is no way to stop roaches, they are just a part of life. I don't know if I can have them become part of my life...hopefully we won't have to many more visitors! It does make it a good reason to clean up EVERYTHING and not to leave anything on the floor where they could hide. 

We just found the second roach tonight on Dave's side of the bed. This thing was HUGE, I even took video of it because we had to show people for them to believe us! We are also posting different parts of our adventures here in Australia on our Youtube channel, ShoaveRoberts. Check it out and see some of the videos, warning they aren't the best because I have NOOO editing skills!

Cheers!

Kolas, Kangaroos, Emus, Oh My!

Today Dave and I took a little adventure to the Blackbutt Reserve in Kotara, NSW. It is located only about 20 minutes away from Newcastle and accessible via the CityRail Trail, you just have to then walk on the side of the busiest road without a sidewalk and then run across said busy road and you are there! Blackbutt Reserve is a free experience that has different wild birds, wombats, flora, koalas, kangaroos, and emus. We had a great time see all the different animals, listening to the different bird calls, and hanging out with a 4 year old koala. The best part of the day was getting to pet a koala, seeing a baby koala, and then seeing a baby kangaroo (joey)! This is definitely a place that Dave and I will be going back to while we are here in Newcastle!

Here are a few of the 200+ photos we took today:

Did you see the little baby koala and joey? If not look closely and try to find them!

Best of DC

I have wanted to do this post since Dave and I left the DC area almost one month ago. The DC area is where we lived together for the first time as a married couple and spent the next three years have mini adventures. We experienced many different things there; both great and not so great. We used to go into the city about once a month to see ALL the different things that the Nations Capital had to offer us. There are SOOOOOO many things that you can do for FREE in the city, that you can easily fill up your weekends on the cheap!

Here are my top 25 pictures from DC (+ 1 more): 

Lincoln Memorial

Jefferson Memorial

Air and Space Museum 

Red Pandas at the National Zoo

Friendship Arch in Chinatown

Arlington Cemetery 

Arlington Cemetery 

U.S. Capital 

Vietnam War Memorial

U.S. Capital at Night

Washington Monument

National Cathedral 

Mount Vernon

Lincoln Memorial

Lincoln Memorial

WWII Memorial

WWII Memorial

Washington Monument 

Constitution of United States of America - National Archives

Berlin Wall - Newsuem

The Awakening - National Harbor

War Nurses Memorial

Jefferson Memorial - Cherry Blossom Festival

Washington Monument - Kite Festival

Musician at Dupont Circle

View from Potomac River

If you haven't explored Washington DC yet, make sure you make plans to see the great city soon!

Welcome to Oz!

Hello! Hello! Hello!


Dave and I have been in Australia for almost a week, and it has been unbelievable! It feels like we have been here longer, Newcastle is starting to feel like home. Newcastle is a city without really being a city, if that is even possible. It is the 2nd largest city in New South Wales, after Sydney, and 2nd oldest in Australia. It is a city that was built by the hardest convicts sent over by Britain, something that the people embrace. The city is industrial at one end and then six blocks up it's a relaxed ocean city. Newcastle has beautiful beaches; Nobby's Beach & Newcastle Beach, a great artist scene, beautiful parks, and much more we still have to discover.

Dave and I have walked around most of the city, taking in the different cafes, local shops, ocean views, and friendly smiles. We even grabbed the train and bus to check out the local areas. You actually have to take a bus ride for 35 min. to get to a computer store  or bigger clothing store, this took me as crazy...you have to travel outside of the city to get to a computer store! It took awhile, but this place has started to grow on us. We decided that this could be a place for us and luckily we were able to find a fully furnished apartment that was in our price range. Our new apartment is just two blocks from Darby St., which is the artist area and has great little shops, restaurants, etc, close to the art gallery, and library. We are also only a 10 min. walk from the grocery store and outdoor mall, the only downside is walking up the STEEPEST HILL EVER back up to our apt.  Something pretty interesting is that in our little apartment complex is that it houses 9 other Americans, mostly students from Wisconsin who are attending University (Uni)!  Maybe Dave and I will meet them and have a MidWest Meet Up Down Under!


Language Differences:
University = Uni
Thank You = Ta
Great = Ripper
Breakfast = Brekkie
Elevator = Lift
Garbage = Rubbish
McDonalds = Mackers
To Go = Takeaway

C ya Down Under!

In officially 24 hours Shoave will be in the airport checking in for the adventure of a lifetime! We will be flying from Minneapolis, MN to Dallas, TX (then running our booties off to catch the next plane) to Brisbane, AUS to Newcastle, AUS! Holy flying, batman! We will be leaving for this adventure around 4p.m. on Friday, August 5th and landing at 1:30p.m. August 7th...crazy. There will be a total of 20 hours spent in the air. The worst part right now is that Dave has caught a major cold yesterday and can't seem to shake it. So I have him on a strict schedule of medicne, orange juice, and rest..the last thing we (or others) want is for him to be sick during the whole way to Australia.

So today will be spent doing errands and getting ready for an adventure of a lifetime. We still have no idea where we will live, where we will work, when we will come home, or what the heck we will do! This is what makes it VERY exciting and VERY crazy! Since we will be busy running around and have no wireless internet access this will be the last post from AMERICA!!

We will see you on the flip side,

DOWN UNDER!!!